


A Fine Name

by Missy



Category: Burn Notice
Genre: Community: smallfandomfest, Family, Future Fic, Gen, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-05
Updated: 2010-07-05
Packaged: 2017-10-10 09:53:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/98363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fiona and Michael are shocked when Sam returns from the dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Fine Name

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Johnnygirl51 for smallfandomfest; prompt: Burn Notice, Sam &amp; Michael, "I thought you were dead!". Beta read by wickedpissaa.

The penthouse hadn't changed in five years. Sam noticed that as he shuffled up to the door, his kit bag over his shoulder and his eyes focused on the stoop. He staggered at the doorstep, resting heavily against the railing.

He breathed, relaxing, counting to ten. Eventually his equilibrium returned, and he extended a fist to knock on the door.

It opened on the fourth knock. In the doorway, Fiona stood, a Lugar in her right hand and a baby on her hip.

"Hey, Fi," he said nonchalantly.

The gun hit the floor with a metallic clunk, and she wrapped her other arm protectively around her baby. "By the saints," she breathed.

Sam gave her a crooked smile. She still recognized him in spite of the weight loss, good. "More like the devil." Sam caught the look in Fi's eyes and stepped back. He glanced down at the baby and smiled. "Hey, who's that?"

She moved away from him, putting protective distance between them. "What's Michael's favorite drink, and where did I meet him?"

Sam frowned. This was their old emergency question, the answer to which only the four of them knew; the answer to his were 'Sheboygan' and 'Miss Elizabeth's School of Charm and Dance.". "Yogurt smoothie, blueberry with extra ginseng, and a pub in Dublin. You thought he was your contact and gave him a handful of C4. Nice job there, lady."

Fiona's shoulders sloped in obvious relief. "His name is Declan." She kept staring at Sam as she squeezed the baby's tiny hand. "He's our second."

Sam managed a grin, somewhat captivated by the look in the eyes of the tiny child. "Has it really been that long?"

"Is that the only thing you can say?" Fiona shook her head, trying to balance the baby on her hip. "We saw that car explode! Michael and I flew to Tanzania to kill the man who informed on you!"

"Thanks for that," Sam said nonchalantly.

He should have expected her to backhand him with her free hand – even at nearly forty-five, Fi could pack a punch, and she sent him rocking backward against the wall. "We mourned for you for three years!" she cried. Little Declan, living up to his heritage, giggled at the chaos.

Sam rubbed his sore jaw. "I had to protect you both," he informed her.

"Neither of us have ever needed protection," Fiona said. After glaring at him for another minute, she held out her arm. "Come here, you old bastard."

"Watch it, Irish," he growled, before being swept into a hug so hard he swore he felt his ribs crack.

"We missed you," she said. "Michael most of all."

When she released him, Sam sucked in a deep breath. "Where is he?"

"With our other boy at the beach." She shifted the weight of Sean in her arms.

Sam watched Fi with the baby for another second. "I still don't believe you two retired," he remarked, shaking his head and turning toward the door.

"Semi-retired," Fiona said. "There's a C5 brick in my boy's lunchpack." At Sam's look she just chuckled. "You have to train them young or they'll blow off a thumb!"

 

***

He came out of the fog like the ghost Michael presumed he was. The shock made him pull tighter on the rod in his grip.

"Daddy, you made me lose the fish!" a complaining voice came from his side. Michael didn't hear his son; he could only watch as Sam approached. The boy tugged at his pantleg. "Who's that?"

"Mike," Sam said; it was Sam, no one had the same voice, that scar, that way of looking at a person. His voice was throaty with emotion.

He didn't expect Michael to rush him, to be pulled to the ground with a gun to his throat. "You sick son of a bitch," he hissed.

"Mike!" Sam's voice cracked.

"Who do you work for? Why the hell are you wearing his face?" Michael growled.

With a hard lunge – one that was weaker than the fight he'd have given ten years before – he rolled Michael over, shoving the wrist holding the gun to the dirt. "It's me. I swear to God." Michael glared up mistrustfully. "Blueberry smoothie with ginseng and a pub in Ireland," Sam declared, and Michael relaxed instantly.

A second impatient tug, this time to Sam's pantleg. "Are you gonna shoot him?" the little boy sounded bored.

"Nah," Sam said, letting go, "your dad's just afraid I was playing a game with him."

"But daddy LIKES playing leapfrog," the boy declared, which encouraged Sam to get up off of Michael as quickly as was prudent for his trick knee.

Michael shook his head, sitting up and brushing sand off of his expensive suit shirt. "Jesus Christ, Sam."

Sam frowned. "You learned better than that - don't curse in front of the boy."

The boy, who was all of six, had already grown bored and was busy trying to disentangle their fishing poles, hadn't heard his father's mild blasphemy. "He's my kid and he's heard worse words around Fiona during a United versus Manchester match," Michael reminded Sam. "I thought you were –"

"That's what I needed you to think," Sam curled up, extending his bad leg and tucking up the other to rest his chin against. "If I hadn't tricked the three of you they would've come full-force after Maddie or Fi."

Michael frowned. "You don't think we could have handled that?"

Sam shook his head. "It was a fucking cartel, Mike. I had to get you guys out of there before they wiped you out."

"They're not the ones who did the obliteration," Michael informed Sam.

He shook his head. "I know. And the damn explosion backfired on me – burned my right leg to a crisp. I spent four months in a VA hospital getting skin grafts."

Michael frowned. "Why didn't you come back?"

He lowered his head. "While I was hospitalized they ran a series of tests on me. Do you remember the experimentation the Navy ran on soldiers? The vaccine that was supposed to cure seasickness?" Michael nodded. "They didn't tell us it'd send a guy's chance of getting cirrhosis off the charts." Sam sighed. "I've been fighting it for eight years now."

"I knew you had to have a good reason for not coming back. You're the most loyal man I know."

Sam shook his head. "I was just trying to spare you. The last thing you and Fi deserved to get stuck with after your notice got cleared was an old man who needed nursing."

"Is it in remission?"

Sam shook his head. "It's spreading into my chest. Not the lungs, yet, thank God, and the doctors here are supposed to be starting me on a new regimen. But it's a forty-eight percent chance I'll make it."

Michael knew immediately. "You're under an assumed name. You have been the whole time."

Sam nodded. "Chuck Finley never dies, brother." He brushed aside the sand gathered by his elbow.

"I never thought to look him up," Michael declared. Sam's story had apparently only pissed Michael off even more. "That's what you came back here to do. Die." He sounded like a wounded boy, still the child rejected by his father.

Sam shook his head. "I hope it's not. But if I did, I'm glad. I needed you both to know that if I had to, I would have laid my life down for you both. I did, in a way."

"No matter who gets hurt?"

"It's not like that," Sam insisted. "I didn't want to hurt you both by coming back just to die again. If there wasn't a chance I'd live, I wouldn't have done it." He crossed his legs together, fidgety as a schoolboy. "But there is that chance, Mike."

Michael didn't' say anything. He turned toward his son and stood up, walking toward him and ignoring Sam.

But Sam, irresistibly drawn, couldn't let him leave. "The best part of my life was spent with the two of you. I know it's selfish to want that back, but it's really the only thing I do want." Michael looked over his shoulder. "Can you forgive me, Mike?"

"Dad!!" the boy shouted. "I've got one!"

Michael handled the hauling of a bass onto the shore the same way he used to lead a raid; with the calm leadership of a general under fire. Soon father and son had hauled the fish onto the shore. The boy celebrated his victory with a grin.

"Good work, Sammy," said Michael.

Sam couldn't help but grin. "Sammy?" he repeated.

The little boy frowned up at him, a miniature Michael with Fiona-red hair, completely distrustful. "What's it to you?"

"Sam…" Michael said in warning.

The boy sighed. "I'm sorry, mister," he said. "I thought you were making fun of me."

Sam knelt down, gingerly but smiling. "Why would I do that? Samuel is a great name. There've been kings…"

"Kings?" Michael asked.

"…AND great brewers with that name."

Sammy stared at Sam as if he were a particularly strange creature. "How did you know my full name is Samuel?"

Sam just grinned. "Because it's my name, too."

The boy frowned again. "Daddy said I'm named after his best friend."

"That's him, too." Michael said.

"Still?" Sam asked.

"Yes," Michael said. Sam hadn't expected a flowery display of emotion from Michael and didn't get it. But that was all he needed. He smiled, happy to be forgiven.


End file.
